Tag: Renegade Review

I should really call this one more of a preview than an official renegade review. However, I would be remiss as a burgiatrist if I didn’t report my findings.

A few weeks ago, I went to my nephew’s graduation from ECU in Greenville, NC. We had about an hour to kill before one of the ceremonies we were going to, and he suggested we stop at Sup Dogs.

Boy, was that a great idea. The burger selection is good with innovative toppings and combinations for what is basically a college hangout. I ordered the bacon cheese fries burger.

Randy Jackson would be proud.

It had just the right amount of everything on it. Nothing spilled out as I ate it. It was a smash-style burger which, unfortunately, was way overdone. It’s an easy thing to do with a thin patty. However, the build was great. They didn’t bother with lettuce and tomato which similar places will throw on there because they feel they have to. The brioche bun was toasted on the griddle and held up well.

At the time, I lamented that I would be unable to get another chance to enjoy Sup Dogs. On my return to the Triangle, I learned that there is one on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

My preliminary rating is a 3.75 out of 5, but look for our official review coming up in the next few months. I have high hopes that the overdone patty was a fluke, and this could be a 4.25 or 4.5. Fingers crossed.

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The writing was on the wall (pun not intended) about this burger. Right there on the menu it had a schematic of the Our Burger. I will quote from the menu, “Paul strategically stacked the Our Burger from the bottom up to deliver maximum taste & happiness.”
No. No. No.
If you want to deliver maximum happiness with a burger, how about having the burger be what you taste the most. They need to take a page out of Smashburger’s book and put the main flavor on the bottom. The only thing between the bottom bun and the patty is the seasoning. The theory is that the seasoning will touch the tongue first, and that will be the dominant flavor.
With the Our Burger, you get sauce (good), lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, then the patty. This build is just wicked wrong.
It’s a shame, too, because the patty was excellent. Excellent balance of char and flavor. I highly recommend heading to Wahlburgers if you have one near you. Just be prepared to take it apart and build it properly.

YAY!

BOO!

My rating is a 3.75. It would have been a 4.75 if the build hadn’t been upside down.

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My wife and I found ourselves in St. Andrews, Scotland, UK. Our tour guide told us to go to Tailend if we wanted fish and chips. Tailend was listed by the National Fish and Chip Awards (yes, that is a thing) as one of the top 10 places in the UK to get fish and chips. I stared at the menu with a genuine dilemma. Here I am in Scotland. Who knows when I will be able to get back here? The haddock used in the fish and chips was probably caught in the North Sea which was about 300 yards from this restaurant. Yet, there it was, staring at me from the menu.

6OZ BEEF BURGER W ONION RINGS & BBQ SAUCE

Scotland’s famous burger and chips.

Do I order a burger and give up the chance at eating what would probably be the best fish and chips I would have ever eaten? Thankfully, my clear-headed wife came to my rescue. She could see my struggle. “Let’s get the large order of fish and chips and the burger. Then, we can split both.”

I knew I married her for a reason.

The medium well patty sat atop arugula and fine onion straws. What I thought was ketchup for the chips was actually the BBQ sauce. The Scots may make tremendous fish and chips, but they don’t know shite about barbecue sauce. At any rate, once I rebuilt the burger with the toppings actually on top and slathered the bun with the spiced ketchup, it was solid. The meat was tasty and fresh but nothing special. I give it a 3.5.

I said to Becky, the owner who worked the grill on this particular day, “I want a Redneck burger, and I need a plain burger with nothing on it for my dog.”

She said, “Your dog’s outside?” I nodded. She said, “You got a leash? You can bring him in.”

I said, “Yeah, I do. How nice,” and got Dooley out of the Jeep.

I don’t want to get all existential and dog-whispering about this, but when I brought Dooley in I pretty much felt him saying, “Wow! Thanks. Can we play that bowling game?” (George Singleton, Garden & Gun, Aug/Sep 2014)

This place sounded too good to miss. Luckily Spartanburg designer and artist Jane Beckler Bird is an old friend and a fan of classic cheeseburgers. She quickly was sworn in as Adjunct Burgiatrist and guest reviewer. Here’s what she had to say.

“Despite being a resident of Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a decade I had visited only two of the three known “burger dives” in this town – The Beacon and Ike’s Korner Grille. At last, I made it to Nu-Way Restaurant and Lounge, a renowned player in this heavenly trifecta. The White Trash Burger did not disappoint…

Nu-Way is truly a burger dive with no frills – just a row of barstools, a handful of tables and a fully stocked bar (complete with the usuals as well as local craft beer). Friendly staff, who seem to know everyone in the place, are eager to please. Clever menu items make selection tough (they all sound great) with Redneck Cheeseburger, Trailer Park Burger and such, but I settled upon a favorite there: The White Trash Cheeseburger.

The White Trash features a sizeable angus patty grilled to taste and includes American cheese, pickles, onions, jalapeno chiles, slaw, mustard and whatever else you wish added for that matter. It’s served on a classic sesame seed bun that perfectly soaks in all the ingredients’ deliciousness. Yeah… a good ol’ messy burger you only eat around those you really love! Paired with some crispy shoestring fries, this burger really hit the spot. It was so filling I elected to take half home for later, and trust me, this is one burger that does leftover very well. It was even amazing the next day!

I am not a well versed foodie or writer of reviews, but I do know a great burger when I find one. Nu-Way’s White Trash Cheeseburger is a must if you’re in downtown Spartanburg. It has close rivalry, but that’s for another writeup another time. Enjoy!” Jane Beckler Bird

Photo borrowed from the Nu-Way Facebook page. Looks like they really are pet friendly.

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As I travel this crazy burger-loving world, it becomes increasingly obvious that burgers are attaining their rightful status as a national meal. It warms this burgiatrist’s heart.

My burgiatric travels recently took me to Prague, where I learned about a new burger venture called Crush Street Food (www.crush.cz). Jan Picha, the brains behind Crush, was driven to burger greatness. In order to get his burger to the people, he retro-fitted an old Citroën truck into a burger-making machine. I discovered this silver beast among a throng of food vendors—a veritable olfactory celebration—in the Andel area of the city.

Quite simply, the burger was great. Fresh, hot, juicy, and very tasty—the burger grand slam. The patty was nicely charred, the bun was toasted perfectly, and the toppings did not overpower the perfectly seasoned patty.

Well played, Crush. Well played. And yes, I’ll take the easy pun: You crushed it.

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In what he describes as his “ongoing search for the perfect ground cow,” associate burgiatrist Brian Kachel brings us his review of Angus Barn’s Wild Turkey Lounge.

Most people consider Angus Barn a place for after-work business meetings, birthday celebrations, and people with deep pockets dressed in serious clothing. Well, that’s mostly true. But climb a set of creaky stairs to find The Wild Turkey Lounge, where you’ll find the Barn’s burger—“16 oz. patty [yes—a pound] of our Angus Barn beef, ground by our butchers”—for a measly $17. The staff will gladly explain how the burger can be spruced up with just about anything they’ve got in the kitchen, from the basic toppings to béarnaise sauce and crab. I personally stand by my faithful favorite formation: bacon and cheddar, medium rare, with a side of mayo.

The burger arrives on a large plate surrounded by a buttered, toasted bun, with massive, charred edges, melted shredded cheddar, and three pieces of crispy, curly bacon on top. I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of the AB bacon. I prefer thick slices on my burgers, but AB puts the little curly crispy guys on theirs. I take a massive first bite to look back and see a pink inside while juice drips down the sides and onto my hands.

Closer to the center I find a warm, deeper pink—almost red—core. The beef is soft and moist on the inside, with a crisp shell from an open flame, with a unique flavor that I can only associate with the seasoned grills of AB. I quickly find my inner peace in this perfectly cooked medium rare patty from heaven.

Brian’s review: 4.5 out of 5.0

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Brothers and sisters, sometimes a spiritual journey is required in order to test one’s convictions, to exorcise one’s demons—you know, to shake things up. The need for such a pilgrimage led me to Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic. For two weeks, I searched and searched, looking for burger enlightenment. As I grew accustomed to gorging myself on stuffed chicken breasts, wood-fired pizza, and kobassa and beer, my focus was less and less on burgers. I was losing my way. That was until I was saved—yes, saved, brothers and sisters!—by the holy site that is Dish. (www.Dish.cz)

This looks good, but where’s the buttermilk fried bacon?

Dish was a spiritual oasis in a desert of heavy, often overly sauced, foods. Dish just makes burgers—and they make them well. Their menu might be simple, but the flavor of their burgers are complex. I gave witness to the burger they call “Savory,” topped with their homemade ketchup, a Portobello mushroom, caramelized onions, a baked tomato, and parmesan cheese chips. The beef was perfectly flavored and cooked to a perfect medium rare. Customer can see the chef prepare the burgers, and it’s clear that he cares that the build is organized and presented well. The bun was a bit of a letdown, as it overpowered some of the complex flavors, thus keeping this angel earthbound.

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This isn’t just a review of an extremely rare and beautiful cheeseburger; it is an emotional story of regret, awakening, and redemption.

I was once at the top of my field, recognized and esteemed by my peers. My accomplishments, along with the considerable rewards and respect they garnered, were accumulated with relative ease, thanks to my limitless passion for fine cheeseburgers and the practice of burgiatry. I was a leading academic, critic, philosopher, poet, and practitioner, contributing something noble to my fellow man: a deeper understanding of—and propensity for—burger bliss. With two of my beloved Ivy League burgiatric colleagues, Doctors Scott Blumenthal and Michael Marino, TheStraightBeef.com was founded, and we began to reach and better the lives of millions of people through our work.

Our vocational passion flared, and we accelerated our efforts, consuming and reviewing burgers with an unprecedented fervor. Simple erudite culinary criticism could not satiate our urge to share our burger love, and so we found release in more creative self-expression, in the forms of haiku, an advice column, and burger prose. I was honored by our academic community with the title of Poet Laureate of Burgiatry. And in these early days, we were lucky, happening upon such beefessence and bovinatious derivations as to pique our palates and inspire our industriousness. We drove hard together, with joy and fulfillment.

But by the third year, despite our continued success and ever-growing fame, I had become spiritless and utterly demotivated as a burgiatrist. I hid it deftly and painfully from my beloved TSB partners. The causes were myriad: the Wagyu/Kobe farce; the Facebook-esque ascent of the dry-ass Kaiser roll; the topsy-turvy build-order fad, with burgers sliding completely off their foundations of wet lettuce, sometimes traveling clear off the plate and onto my best gabardine, if not the checkered tile below. Primarily, though, my fall from grace was precipitated by the combination of an inordinate string of “3-town” (or lower) burgers on the rating scale, and the culmination of my personal despair at not having discovered an elusive 5.

I wanted to give a 5. But more than that, I wanted desperately to eat one. I knew they existed, as I had experienced the perfect burger once or twice before in my life, though I could not quite recall the details of the wheres and the whens to prove it. Rose-colored glasses and the temptation to round a strong 4.5 up would fool no one, least of all me, and I couldn’t do that to our loyal followers in good conscience! By this time, Doctors Blumenthal and Marino had each bestowed fives, which made me jealous and even more desperate…desperate enough to start sneaking out on solo recon missions to hasten my own discovery, which only led to more bad burgers and more frustration, resentment, and, eventually, a pitiful state of self-loathing.

That’s what led to the veggie burgers and the infamous paparazzi shots of me in the bushes with a mouthful of produce and Merita bun.

Thank you, sir. May I have another?

It was not, I declare to you, a secret love of veggie burgers. It was self-flagellation…punishment for who and what I had become. For having lost my passion, lied to my friends and family, and for feeling like a failure and a fool.

When the pictures came out, I did not blame the world of burgiatry and my beloved colleagues for expelling me. I moved my family out of state and, for these many months, continued to punish myself with veggie burgers while staring longingly out to sea for answers.

Then came Gas. No, no…not from the veggie burgers, but a restaurant in my new hometown of Saint Augustine, Florida, by the name of Gas, named for the building’s humble history as a gas station. Shortly after we arrived, I began to heard rumblings and whispers of a phenomenal classic cheeseburger there. At once I would take note and immediately remind myself that I had no interest in such things. As I continued to overhear more effusions and extolations of this burger, the self-reminders grew increasingly delayed and less convincing, until one day they didn’t come at all.

I placed my order and sat at my table, stoic and bewildered by where I was and what I was doing. My Diet Pepsi sat untouched as I waited, its white straw still floating high and leaning precariously to the right upon the edge of the dewy glass.

The waitress had given me the pitch: local grass-fed ground chuck, house-made bun, yada yada yada. In one ear and out the other. But when, behind me, she finally stepped out of the kitchen and into the cozy little dining area, I smelled of it, and something deep within me stirred. She placed it before me and, upon seeing a beautiful, house-made potato bun of perfect proportion, picturesque tomato and lettuce rich with color and in the proper build order, two juicy patties cooked to absolute medium perfection and dripping with juices and melted cheese, I freed my soul to hope again and bristled with anticipation of the first bite.

And with that first bite, my brain was awash in endorphins, and I swooned with that long-forgotten burger bliss. Inconceivably, it was the COMPLETE burger bliss that had been eluding me all those years. A FIVE! A unicorn! The Sasquatch of burgers! I was sitting greasy-faced and grinning on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Tears. Uncontrollable laughter. Loud groans of pleasure. It was a shameless spectacle of satisfaction and celebration that nearly cleared the dining area of its uncomfortable witnesses.

In that restaurant, on that chilly late-winter evening, I awoke from months of a destructive fugue, not able to recall all that happened in it, but crystal clear on how lost I was, how I got there, who I had been before it, and overjoyed at who I would be again! I was Ebenezer Scrooge on his glorious and fateful Christmas morning!

I kissed my wife and children and immediately called my TSB brothers, who have since told me it was like hearing clear speech and lucidity from a loved one tragically lost to the great grips of insanity. More tears! More laughter! God Bless Us! God Bless Us, Everyone! God bless the miraculous and sometimes magical cheeseburger, and God bless Gas Restaurant in Saint Augustine, Florida, for bringing this burgiatrist back from the dead.

Burgiatrist: John McManus

Burger: Classic Rocks

Rating: 5

The film version of this article is slated for nationwide release fall 2013. Starring Bradley Cooper, script by Nicholas Sparks, directed by Ron Howard.

Welcome back, brother.

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John, Paul, George, and Ringo didn’t become the Beatles by just dabbling in music. Chipper Jones didn’t become a baseball legend by just occasionally taking grounders. And Gallagher didn’t become a world-renowned comedian by just casually smashing watermelons in his free time. These people worked relentlessly at their craft. They struggled, they honed, and they sacrificed. They committed themselves.

To create a truly great burger, you’ve got to make it your life. You’ve got to get all the basic stuff right—from grass-fed and freshly ground beef to fresh and varied toppings to well-trained and personally invested staff—and then perfect it. You’ve got to have the first sentence on your website be something like, “[We want] you to think about your burger.” And you’ve got to—as the three Atlanta-area Farm Burger locations do—fully dedicate yourself to making a damn good hamburger.

Farm Burger doesn’t just dabble in burgiatry. It’s committed to it.

My review: 4.75 out of 5.00

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The Straight Beef was recently contacted by Duke School student Cy Neff, who chose food criticism—burger reviewing in particular—as the subject for his eighth grade project. Cy impressed us immediately, from his interest in condiment placement to his mention of the “ongoing crusade against kaiser rolls” to his assertion that “the only thing better than eating a burger is intelligently eating a burger.” The young man was clearly wise beyond his years.

We had the pleasure of meeting with Cy and teaching him some burgiatric ropes. A few weeks later, he sent us the review below—his own take on TSB’s highest-ranked burger joint, Chuck’s (downtown Raleigh). Remember Cy’s name. You’ll want to say you knew him when.

Review of Chuck’s

by Cy Neff, guest burgiatrist

This review has been a painful experience for me. Why? Because Chuck’s was quite the opposite.

The first time I went to Chuck’s, it was because of all the glowing reviews, all of the great things I’d heard about it. I was not disappointed. I boldly declared to my teachers that this was the restaurant I’d review for my project, and that I’d go back as soon as possible. As soon as I said it, I realized my mistake. My mistake? Chuck’s makes one of the best burgers—if not the best burger—I’ve had in my life. But there was my dilemma. Who likes writing a positive review when criticizing a bad one is so much more fun?

So I hoped and hoped that maybe my first Chuck’s experience was a fluke. Maybe it was pure luck and coincidence that my burger was perfectly cooked. It was probably also a fluke that the chocolate cake milkshake was as good as advertised, if not better. And the fact that everyone else seemed to have a great burger there? Obviously coincidence.

On my return trip to Chuck’s, I was once again disappointed. Once again, the unnaturally comfortable wooden chairs and the seamless blend of black, red, and white colors with the music in the background created a frustratingly well-fitting atmosphere. Once again, the milkshake was outstanding. The half-pound Belgian fries were the only thing that didn’t warrant a 10 out of 10, but even they were saved by their sauces (a variety of aiolis, mayos, and mustards), which were an 11. My last hope for even some mediocrity was the burger.

I opted for a classic, with pickles, onions, tomatoes—all the stuff that usually comes with one. The burger arrived. My hopes for anything less than perfection were ripped out, stomped into the ground, and steamrolled. The middle of the meat was a perfect pink, its flavor not drowned out by the toppings. Aside from being the best burger I’ve ever had, it left me with one question: Chuck’s burgers are perfectly charred on the entire outside. Not just the top, not just the bottom, the same level of perfect char all around. How do they manage that? I don’t know, but does it really matter? The burger is a picture of perfection, so I’ll definitely be back.